Saturday, September 12, 2015

THE WRECKING CREW - Mack David and Frank De Vol - "House Of 7 Joys" (1968)

"The Wrecking Crew" was the final installment of four Matt Helm films! The others being "The Silencers," "Murderers' Row," and "The Ambushers!"

Welcome to another hot time Saturday night down in The Dungeon! Mix yourself up an ice cold dry martini or pour yourself a glass of Scotch, and let's get down to some not so serious business!

The star of "The Wrecking Crew" is the man himself, Mr. Cool, aka Dino Martin!

The co-stars are a bevy of beauties that will make any fan of the 60's feel like they found the pot of gold at the end of the corporate psychedelic rainbow!

"The Wrecking Crew" was probably my least favourite of the quartet, but is still a fun watch for a number of reasons! Without a doubt, "The Wrecking Crew" is a farce, and if you try to take it seriously, you'll be sorely disappointed! You just have to enjoy it for what it is, simplistically stupid, but a joy to enjoy!

That's a lot of gold bullion, and it's on a train that's about to get hijacked!

Now THAT is a cool phone! It only calls one very important place, so it doesn't need a dial!

Yet another bombshell who didn't even get top billing was Tina (Gilligan's Island) Louise!

Enjoying Tina's dance is Nigel (The Skull, Jason and the Argonauts, The Face of Fu ManChu) Green as supreme leader Count Massimo Contini, aka: the man who stole the gold!

Classy Nancy Kwan as Yu-Rang will probably always be remembered most for her very first two movie classics, "The World Of Suzie Wong," and "Flower Drum Song!"

So Tina Louise was Ginger on 98 episodes of "Gilligan's Island" starring Bob Denver, and Bob Denver's gig previous to "Gilligan's Island" was "The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis" as Maynard, and just what was Maynard's classic line when someone spoke to him?

That's right, it was "You Rang?!" Are you starting to see a pattern here?

The next gorgeous gal in this feature was Sharon Tate as Freya Carlson, Matt Helm's unwanted clown escort! Surely everybody knows the shocking true story about Director Roman Polowski's wife Sharon Tate who was brutally murdered by the Manson clan! If you don't, Google it!

Poor Dean, he has rendezvous with four of the best looking women in Hollywood at the time, and unlike James Bond, his suave character doesn't even ever score once!

Business is pleasure, but something like a bomb always wrecks all the fun!

Excellent shot of the two beauties Elke Sommer and Sharon Tate together! Elke has the role of Count Massimo Contini's girlfriend Linka Karensky!

A lot of the fight scenes have an obvious stunt man filling in for Dino, but in the closeups, he's kicking ass himself!

Freya finally lets down her hair, and ditches the clown costume for something a little more appealing to Matt Helm!

She also does a little dance that just possibly might be the best part of the movie!

At least Matt Helm gets to drive a cool Lincoln Continental instead of a station wagon in this movie! Here he is pulling up to that world famous dive, the House of 7 Joys which is celebrated in the theme song written by Mack David and Frank De Vol! This movie has a lot of eye candy in it, and I could have chosen a lot more pictures, but that's exactly the reason we've chosen to limit ourselves, otherwise, these things would go on forever!

Just in case you never watch this film, you need to know that Matt Helm had all the components to put this helicopter together in the trunk of his car in two large suitcases!

Visually, a lot of "The Wrecking Crew" is green screen city!

There were plans to have Sharon Tate and Dean Martin reunite for a fifth Matt Helm feature

called "The Ravagers," but Dean refused to continue on with the series after the horrible murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson family, which all adds up to making "The Wrecking Crew" one of the silliest but saddest films of all time!

So that's the last of the Matt Helm films in The Dungeon Library, and now that I see that this 4 DVD set is selling online for a minimum of about $45.00, I guess it's time for my copy to vamanos too!

7 comments:

I can't help wishing that Elke Sommer had gotten to be a literal "Bond Girl," along with this movie and DEADLIER THAN THE MALE. The same with Dahlia Lavi - she was in a ton of spy movies, including one of the other Matt Helm ones, but never a Bond movie (not counting the comedy CASINO ROYALE).

Whether it would have been in a real Bond movie or the many imitations (Flint, Man From U.N.C.L.E., etc.), I can't help wishing that Elke had played more femme fatales. The Wrecking Crew and Deadlier Than the Male used her to good advantage. Similarly, Murderer's Row showed how good Camilla Sparv could have been playing seductive villainesses. Both were usually wasted playing bland characters, like the hero's girlfriend. (The Wrecking Crew also proved that Nancy Kwan could be very good at playing someone who was very bad).

Conversely, Daliah Lavi seemed to almost make a career out of playing slinky enemy spies. One critic once joked that Luciana Paluzzi would get arrested by the FBI or MI5 if she played any more spies in movies. You could say the same thing about Daliah and Senta Berger, too. But (1) there were a lot of spy movies being made then, and (2) those actresses were well suited for it. Why not? John Wayne made a lot of Westerns, Vincent Price made a lot of horror movies, and Humphrey Bogart made a lot of gangster movies.

The Helm series was obviously an attempt to emulate the James Bond series, but, ironically, the later Bond movies seemed to imitate Helm. Villains plotting to start WWIII (The Silencers, You Only Live Twice). A satellite with a laser beam threatening to destroy Washington DC (Murderers' Row, Diamonds Are Forever). Hijacked spacecraft (The Ambushers, Moonraker). And Bond uses a magnet to trap Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me, just as Helm did with Ironhead in Murderers' Row.

Thanx Anonymous Fun Fact Guy! I meant to put in that tidbit about Chuck Norris, but forgot. Actually, "The Wrecking Crew" was Chuck's FIRST film appearance! And Yes indeed, it is too bad that Chuck and Bruce weren't at the house, and some real justice could have been meted out on the spot!

Hey pallie, likes E&T, we thinks that with each Helmer review your scribin' and snaggin' of screen shots gets better and better. Know that today we have posted your most Dino-honorin' labors of love a la "The Wrecking Crew" at our humble little ilovedinomartin conclave! Hopes you will share more Dino-inspiration in the comin' days!

DWRAYGER DUNGEON PRESENTS: The Monster Movie Music Manifesto

Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Spy, Super-Hero, JD, Thriller and Noir films, that's what we like, and a recurring theme in a lot of those kinds of movies has always been music! There were rockin' clubs and cafes with cool jukeboxes, teen poolside parties with local bands, sometimes it was a seedy bar with a sleazy torch singer, a beatnik coffeehouse, maybe dancing somewhere in outer space, or some weird tribal ceremony on a cool secluded island with giant monsters running around, and you could count on it that a lot of the time there was smoking and drinking going on. It was a fun time!! A lot of movies also had quirky, swingin', jazzy or rockin' themes or credits, or maybe just some wild Psychotronic elements! We started with the music from 50's & 60's Monster Movies, but we later morphed into the new, bigger and better, Rock and Soul, 70's brevity, 80's maybes, 1940's Gorilla and Bela site from Hell! So, sit down, and take a load off, pour yourself a cool one, and order up something hot and greasy, because we have a lot of tasty tidbits on the menu, way outside the realm of good taste! If any of the postings just happen to step on anybody's toes, let us know & we will remove them immediately, if not sooner!! We recognize all formal copyrights, and do this solely to support and promote the films featured! This forum is only being presented in a critical and scholarly critique, and should not be construed as anything else. It's just all for Fun & Historical Education in an effort to keep bad taste alive forever!!! If the words and pictures pique your interest, then please go out & buy, or rent the movies, wherever you can find them! All soundclips are approximately two minutes long, or just enough to give you a feel for the movie! When we post a sound clip, it will only stay up 30 days or less! These days, after getting hassled time and time again, we don't even do soundclips much anymore!!

Here are some good places to start your search for hard to find cult films on the internet:

TRASH PALACE!

CULT ACTION!!

When it comes to movies, the name of this site speaks for itself!

1980's CASSETTE CULTURE

Hear What You Missed The First Go Round!

BSC MUSIC

If you would like to hear more amazing music from composers like Peter Thomas and Martin Böttcher, then do yourself a favor and check out BSC Music! There Are Still Places In The World To Buy Cool Music!